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I led a mission trip to Istanbul for three weeks once, with two other people on my team. They both smoked, and so did everyone in Istanbul. After that, I decided to learn how to smoke so that I could easily talk to people and start conversations instead of just standing there looking stupid while everyone else smoked. Plus, I lived in Portland at the time, and all the cool kids were doing it. Anyway, my smoking habit only lasted about 3 months. I quit after the time I smoked a clove cigarette and it made me vomit. I found out later that cigarettes are detrimental for someone with my very rare eye condition, so that solidified it- I don't care how cool it is, I'd rather not be completely blind and cancerous.

I usually smoke between two times a week to once a month depending on certain situations. This has been the case for a few years. Usually I will smoke if I'm at a camp fire or relaxing at home, I stay away from it when I'm stressed or feel most any negative emotions because that is not my purpose for smoking.

I smoke a pipe with either flavored tobaccos or a smooth aromatic blends. The flavor, the smell, the feeling of the pipe. It all plays a role in the experience, not to mention the skill required to pack it properly, tamp it just right, and the patience it takes to puff slow enough to keep water from condensing and yet keeping it lit the whole time, and the maintenance that a pipe requires (it must be cleaned very well after its cooled down, then allowed to dry before it's used again).

I smoke because I like the taste, I smoke as a hobby more than a habit, but most of all I smoke because I want to, only when I want to.

Well, I have no shortage of grammatical issues myself. Grammatical rules are more guidelines in this sort of arena I would tend to believe. Shared meaning is what's most important here. I understand what you mean, you understand what we mean. Grammatical crimes committed, yes, but meaning still shared.

Most smokers start when they are young, reckless, and stupidly possessed of the notion that they know everything and are immortal. Ironically, it may actually be that our laws intended to make it hard for kids to smoke creates the very appeal that draws them in, because it seems to imply that, like sex, smoking is for adults only.

Unintended consequences.

So, most of the adults who seem to give young people the example that adults smoke actually started when they were children. I'm almost 65, have known many a smoker, and have never met one who started as an adult.

Have you?

BTW, I'm lucky that childhood asthma kept me from even trying my first cigarette. In college I tried marijuana, but it irritated my lungs and threatened to initiate an asthma attack. Since by then I had more or less outgrown asthma attacks, I didn't wish to risk having them again.

I don't smoke unless I'm on fire. That happened once when I wasn't careful lighting some brush on fire...

Control is a big thing with me. I want to be in control at all times. Don't drink because of the dis-inhibition it elicits (been there, done that, been an ass!). Gave up chocolate because of it's control over me (baking chocolate chip cookies...some for the dough, equal amount in my face!).

I just don't like "having to have" something or I'll get twitchy, grumpy, sick etc etc. It's all about control for me.

A big part of it is the rituals you build around it. You've all read books like The Believing Brain, or at least you've read the summary on Amazon, so you understand how humans tend to find or create patterns and then become attached to them in one way or another.

One of the hardest parts of quitting is disentangling yourself from the daily routines and rituals that you built up around having a cigarette. Realizing that you enjoy the rituals more than the cigarette does help initiate the quitting process, but it also hinders it as you try to figure out how you can keep the rituals without the cigarette, or at least adapt them. For example, a cigarette was the catalyst for the nightly unwind on the back porch with my wife before bed; we introduced an herbal tea into the ritual, so the cigarette could be phased out. Sort of an Indiana Jones switcharoo

Although my mother was a pack-a-day smoker (until she quit cold-turkey at age 40), I was never tempted to take it up as a teen. Probably because everyone else was, and damned if I was going to follow the crowd!

Later, when I discovered girls, smoking became the deal-breaker. Fortunately, the Superwife has never smoked, and neither have our two daughters.

True story - our daughters are about four years apart. When the oldest was seven (and here sister almost four), they had a "Health Studies" class in the elementary school, where they were taught about the effects of smoking on the body. During the discussion at dinner, I dropped a remark to the effect that I couldn't abide a woman who smokes. The oldest asked "Well, what if Mommy had smoked when you met her?"

I replied "We wouldn't have got past the Hi-how-are-you stage".

Her little sister stopped eating, put down her fork, and, giving her mother a big hug, said "Thank you for not smoking, 'cause if you did, I don't think I'd be here."

Once you start and you're hooked, "aaahhh!!! there's nothing like a fag" as we say comically in the UK.

Praise the Lord I gave up 4 years ago. Totally useless habit that just feeds itself and makes you ill, stinky and poor. I don't miss the horrible things at all. That said, I'll always be biologically a smoker and I do have the occasional relapse which strangely I just love.